Dorian glanced back at the tunnel’s end. The tunnel wouldn’t dig itself, and Dorian probably could use an outlet for his frustration. To me, my request for more information didn't seem like a big ask, but I gave him some time to mull it over.

  I pulled an unremarkable box out of a coarse sack and flipped it open to reveal a set of devices quite similar to a simple chemistry set. Of course, the similarities ended there. The tubes were wood instead of glass. In fact, none of the small tools—a mortar and pestle, stirring rods, straws, and funnel—had a trace of metal. They all consisted of wood or other plant material inscribed with various runes. A diagram on the inside of the box’s cover explained the process. You placed the rock sample in a tube filled with water. With a bit of stirring and activation of a few runes, the crystal dissolved in the water. Then you would transport the solution via hollow reeds—really just large bore straws—into shallow wells in the tray. After that, you waited.

  The runes above each well would light if the Aether hit a certain density. A pretty straightforward way of creating a standardized reading, not that different from litmus paper for acid-base chemistry. It was also completely unnecessary. Dorian had a skill that ballparked the Aether density. For kicks, I tested him. He had it right every time. He claimed he had better accuracy, but apparently, his skill didn’t count as a qualifiable measurement—at least not for the Verndari or some other ?ttir above him. Even if it annoyed Dorian, I found it hard to argue when all the ?ttir here were under a life debt. Trust but verify. Plus, it gave us more time to talk while looking busy.

  I took a sample and started to grind it down with the mortar and pestle. “So tell me why I need to be careful with talking to people about my skills?”

  He sighed, but he did start to explain as he helped set up the kit. “The short version is that I think you have the potential to be what Humans consider a prodigy.”

  I laughed. “I am smart but not that smart.” That wasn’t false modesty. In my many, many years of schooling, I’d met many people far sharper than I was. Some would even say that the smartest never bothered with medicine.

  He snorted. “I think you are doing yourself a disservice. You are far more than you seem. But it isn’t your intelligence that I am talking about. It is your Potentials. You don’t need to be smart or a genius to be a prodigy, though they do tend to go together even for those with only extraordinary physical Potentials. Prodigies are people who far exceed the average Potentials. They have the ability to break into the upper tiers.” Then he added, “Tiers V and higher.”

  “And that is rare?”

  “Yes, especially for Humans. A Human with a Potential exceeding Rank 14? That only happens a handful of times in a generation.”

  “Which means?”

  “They never break into Tier V.”

  The pestle slipped from my hand as the weight of his words struck me. “Wait. Potentials cap your level?” He nodded, and I had to take a moment as those words sank in. I had met plenty of high achievers. Hell, I was one of them. I had sacrificed so much fun in pursuit of my profession, but would I have done that if my dream rested above a ceiling set from birth? “That is so unfair.”

  “Isn’t it? But nothing in this world is.”

  I touched the Mark on my face. “How easy is it to tell a person’s Potentials?”

  He made a noncommittal gesture. “The exact Rank? Hard. The range? Much easier.” He motioned to my face with his chin. “You already guessed it. The Marks tell a lot. You expect a certain development by a certain age.”

  If levels equaled power, the stratification and inequality that would generate… Humans didn’t need help in creating class structures. Add in a literal mark on your skin that couldn’t be erased?

  “Please tell me Potentials aren’t completely hereditary.”

  “Hard to know. Prodigies do run in families, but to my knowledge, it isn’t guaranteed, even with two prodigies having kids. That doesn’t stop the noble houses from trying to breed with one another. Regardless, most Humans will have one Potential that exceeds Rank 10. That guarantees that they can break into Tier III, but it is often just a few levels. While level 25 is possible, it is harder when your Potential’s rank is in the lower half of that tier’s range.”

  “I see.” I paused to process the information. “So, it sounds like the upper ranks have the potential for much more power.”

  “Yes, and as I said, Humans rarely have Potentials with Rank 15 or higher.”

  “Potentials…so adequately named. And there is nothing you can do to boost them?”

  “Not many. If you are lucky, you can with advancing your class, but that rarely happens with basic classes. Class evolutions can augment them. Often, a class merger will unlock greater Potentials, but that’s even more uncommon than an evolution. You often need to achieve Ranks that exceed what most Human Potentials allow.”

  “Seems like a catch-22.” He gave me a quizzical look. “Ah. Sorry. A phrase from home. I just meant that it is a situation that will never allow you to get what you need even when you try to follow the rules.”

  “Yeah. It is why people turn to tonics. Most are a joke, doing a whole ton of nothing or, in the worst cases, actual harm. The only effective ones are extremely rare and even more expensive.”

  “Training?”

  “Only in that it may help with advancing your class.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “So you are lucky, or you aren’t.” I swallowed. In many ways, I had been lucky in life back on Earth…well, until just recently. However, this was on another level. Sure, not everyone could be a Nobel laureate or Olympian, but to be so limited based on physiology… Did try hard and you will succeed mean anything here?

  “That is one way to put it. Charging a passive skill hours after getting it? That is more than luck. What you did takes practice or such a high Processing and Perception that Tier I skills are considered trivial. Your natural talents may not lie in Projection, but if you were in a Human city, you would be a treasure, both valued and guarded. I don’t know how anyone didn’t realize it when they found you.”

  I did. The Vísir’s scan failed because my Mark was too fresh. “But I am not in a Human city.”

  “No. You aren’t, which is why you need to be careful, especially once you break through the first tier. Then it will become more obvious that your leveling hasn’t slowed.” He rolled his eyes at my blank look. “Because you have only achieved a smaller fraction of your overall potential, you will level faster.”

  “Right.” A perfect corollary to Potential limiting your maximum level.

  He nodded before holding out the dissolving cup filled with water. It took me a second to remember that we were doing something other than talking. I took the cup and filled it with the specified amount of ground sample.

  “So, I am a threat because I could be powerful.” It just didn’t make that much sense. “But the way you said Humans tend to be average implies other peoples aren’t.” He nodded. “So they have more outliers?”

  “Yes, and it is predictable. Take us Oresiani. We are predisposed towards higher ranks of Infusion and Perception, with the women among us tending to have a higher Perception and the men favoring Infusion.”

  “Wait. Men and women differ?”

  “I thought you had eyes?”

  “That’s not what I…” But what did I mean? I had assumed Potentials had no gender bias—like intelligence rather than strength, but was that the case?

  He laughed. “I should hope not. But yeah, that difference is why so many of our clans are headed by women. We men tend to get classes that empower our bodies or tools. Early on, we tend to run hotheaded. Later, when all you have done is bash things, it is hard to manage things with finesse. It makes us good in the mines, but terrible at handling personnel and logistics. Just don’t ever let the womenfolk hear you cast any doubt on their ability to carry their weight in a mine. We aren’t like the Volki. Our women are fierce. They are far stronger than most Human men, and the best [Seekers] tend to be women. The successful clans learned long ago not to be afraid of letting women run the show.”

  ”Is the difference in Perception and Infusion between genders a guarantee?”

  He waved his hand. “Nah. Just a rule of thumb, but when you look at the entirety of the clan, you see the patterns. However, there are so many exceptions. Like me.”

  “Your Perception is higher than your Infusion.”

  “Equal, actually. But it was enough to open up a few different avenues.”

  “Huh.” I really needed to figure out my Potentials. “So, going back to Humans. They don’t have many outliers. So, while they give up areas of strength, they should have fewer weaknesses. It all balances out, right?”

  “Not a chance. A predisposition makes it more likely to hit higher ranks. It may be a limited area, but remember, the amount of power increases with each level. A level 50 will rip apart multiple people stuck in Tier IV. Sure, it isn’t guaranteed if those people are level 49 or close to the cap, but a Tier V will have the edge. Don’t get me started on what happens when people move past level 50 and into the depths of Tier V.”

  “Oh.” How were humans not screwed?

  As if reading my mind, “It isn’t as bad as it sounds. A full-strength Tier V facing a Tier II can only happen in certain areas. A Tier V needs a high, ambient Aether density to support the skills they earned in later levels. Not many places exist with a steep enough Aether gradient that a Tier V will be at full strength and a Tier II won’t be on the ground sick from Aether toxicity. Even with the right geography, powerful as they are, Tier V’s are not a one-man army. Synergies exist between classes. With enough people and the right combination, even a Tier V could be vulnerable to a group of Tier II’s—theoretically, at least.”

  “That’s reassuring, I think.”

  “It is. Trust me. Now, the difference in power between a Tier III and Tier II isn’t as significant, which benefits most everybody, not just Humans. Many people don’t make it to the upper tiers even if they have the Potentials. However, I would say another major reason Humans can flourish is because their spread in all six Potentials is so small. Oh, and how could I forget…” His face turned red. “Humans are, um, notoriously fertile.”

  I smirked. Who knew talking about sex would fluster Dorian so much? “Why is that helpful? The Potential spread, that is. Wouldn’t you want a wider spread to get higher Potentials?”

  “They have access to a more diverse set of classes. Like I said, synergies exist. Add numbers.” He shrugged. “They get by. It helps that humans have—or had—always dwelled in the lower-tier areas.”

  “Had?”

  “Yeah. Recently, the Humans have developed new weapons that let them hold their own and then some in higher tier zones.”

  “Ah, I think I am seeing the cause of all the animosity.”

  “Animosity?” He laughed, though it was clearly no humor in it. “That’s putting it mildly. If a group of Volki and a group of Humans both found themselves in a tavern together, well, I pity the owner of the place.” He waited for me to finish pipetting the sample into the well. “You have to understand, tension’s always been a part of this place—blame it on the geography. At least, that is what my tutor—” He cleared his throat. “Uh, my teachers—have told me. We are hemmed in by the mountains on one side and the sea on the other. If that wasn’t enough, this area also has zones in the upper echelons, as well as a very steep Aether gradient. You don’t have to travel far from the water to start getting increased Aether density. It is great for getting high-tier materials, but it limits truly safe areas, especially for Humans.”

  “So space is a premium. And resources?”

  “Less of an issue for the mid-tier stuff. Humans struggle without a supplier, but we can get that stuff without issue. However, the really high-tier materials are the prize. Of course, extracting that in large amounts is hard. Small amounts? Sure. No problem. But large volumes? That takes a ton of resources and organization. An expedition like this one doesn’t happen often. Most groups aren’t strong enough to protect one. Everyone will gang up on them. Instead, we fight for prime territory. Typically, it has been Oresiani fighting against Volki. ?ttir occasionally get into the mix, but mostly to keep the status quo. You could say that this expedition is groundbreaking. I would never have imagined seeing Volki and Oresiani work together. And you want to take a guess why?”

  That wasn’t even remotely tricky. “Humans.”

  He tapped his nose. “You got it in one. You Humans—and I use that loosely with regards to you—used to stay tucked away in areas with low Aether density. Their lower Potentials made getting accustomed to higher-tier areas more difficult. Their skills increased in strength, but their control often didn’t. Conversely, they did better in areas with lower Aether. It granted a huge advantage when defending against invading forces. The fatigue from low Aether densities rapidly takes its toll on high-level people. While they don’t have great access to a lot of materials, they got by with the monsters that leak past their normal boundaries. It happened often enough, probably too often.

  “The Volki were caught flatfooted when the Humans actually struck. They pushed in hard, led by their prodigies. I think the Volki actually laughed when they saw the Humans march on their territory. That stopped after the first battle.